The concept I have for this blog is a bit unlike most other blogs and will be organized differently. Here, I explain a bit of the story behind starting this blog and how this blog will work works.

My Struggle With Personal Growth

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been someone who wants to master everything they do and try. My problem was that I wanted to learn and master so many things at once. I would always end up half-assing everything that I tried because I would try a lot of various things at the same time. I would overwhelm myself by not prioritizing and focusing on one thing at a time.

Either that or, I would first get excited about one specific skill, program or area of self-improvement. I’d start learning about it and have goals related to it, feeling super motivated on it for a short period—reading books, watching videos and listening to audio mp3s. Then, I would lose focus, make excuses, get distracted by the next shiny skill or topic I wanted to learn about and achieve, and so on.

I would keep bouncing around, telling myself I would get back to that area of improvement. And sometimes I would get back to it, but I’d never stick with it long enough. So in my mind, I was never really giving up on anything. But in reality, I was never getting to even finish, master or accomplish anything.

In a sense, I was constantly giving up.

I know many of us can relate to this, in one way or another, whether it’s deciding what book to read, what hobby or skill we want to undertake, what degree to choose, what kind of career path to pursue, or what type of business to start. Or even just going after any one goal and persisting with it.

I had (and still do) a folder on my computer titled: “Isabella.” A screenshot of the folder is shown below.

This folder had many different sub-folders of different topics that interested me that I wanted to learn about. Some sub-folders were also of generalized topics that had more subtopic folders inside. Each sub-folder had different programs, audio mp3s and eBooks that I wanted to learn, listen to, and read.

I wanted to learn how to master meditation, but I also wanted to learn how to public speak and train my speaking voice. But at the same time, I also wanted to learn how to make money, be more confident, improve my writing skills, etc.! The list goes on…

You can see how my mind was all over the place.

Starting one thing and then never finishing because something else would catch my attention wasn’t working. That led to some learning but barely any growth because I would never keep at one thing or implement what I was trying to master.

I could never decide what I wanted to start either so that would end up in me never starting anywhere! As a result, I felt paralyzed. I knew I had to prioritize and focus on one thing at a time. But I had a hard time deciding what.

I felt like I was just a collector and consumer of these things. I learned about the term “self-help junkie,” and I, unfortunately, felt like it described me well.

In a world of information overload, I was just an information hoarder. Obsessed and so interested for so long in that which I knew little about or wouldn’t even practice. Thinking I knew so much (when I really didn’t).

I didn’t practice what I preached. I had goals, but no plans. There was only “eventually” and “someday,” not today or tomorrow. When writing down my goals, I would feel more overwhelmed than excited.

Opportunities were being missed, potential was unused and time was being wasted.

I just wanted to learn and get good at everything at once!

And yet not much in my life changed and time only kept ticking.

They say knowledge is power, but I disagree. Knowledge is powerful, yes, but it is not power. Without use, knowledge itself is only potential.

This struggle was frustrating not only for myself but especially when talking to people. Maybe the conversation of meditation would come up. I would get excited and want to say “I love meditation,” but then the thought came: “I don’t even practice it or mediate at all.”

I felt like a fraud.

This is just an example, but there are others:

Loves surfing but hasn’t surfed in 8 years. (been there)

Enjoys books and reading but doesn’t remember the last time they finished (or even started) a book. (been there)

Into fitness but never works out. (been there)

There is no alignment between beliefs and actions.

There was no alignment between who I was and who I wanted to be.

So, my two main problems were:

Focusing on and trying to accomplish too many things at once

Jumping around from topic to topic, never truly finishing or accomplishing much

All in all, I was never taking any REAL action and only saw minimal lasting changes and growth.

Now, I had to find a solution to this. The question arose.

How could I do something about this?

The Idea of a Blog

That’s where the idea for ReachingSelf came in. When I first had the idea for this blog, back in high school, I just wanted to review different programs and books in the self-help area to find out what worked and what didn’t.

I didn’t have very much technical skill then and thought building a website like that required a lot of it. So I gave up on that.

The idea of a blog stayed in the back of my mind though, but it changed and grew into something more.

I thought I could actually be held accountable for following through with learning a skill or area of expertise and reaching goals. I saw it as a way to journal my personal growth journey and find a voice through an online journal.

And, I could help people through watching and learning from me.

Soon, It became a priority life goal that I had to accomplish.

Now, though, I don’t want to jump around or “dabble” between different topics and only learn so much about one topic before moving on to the next one.

It’s also not effective to work on too many habits, goals or projects at a time. It’s better to focus on 1-2 big goals, habits or projects, to increase the likelihood of success and avoid my challenges above.

That’s how I came up with series.

ReachingSelf Series

Here, on ReachingSelf, this blog will be organized by series. Each series, I will solely focus on one specific topic.

In each series, I want to showcase a progression of reaching goals, achieving mastery and succeeding in that area. You can learn why here. I will be spending a certain amount of time, solely dedicated to that specific series. I don’t guarantee that I will reach achievement and success so it can be thought of as a kind of personal growth experiment. Or a challenge. A journey, mission, project.

I hope for it to grow into something much more.

I don’t want to limit myself either where once I finish a series, I will be done with that subject and never bring it up again. The topics in self-development are intertwined with each other and often go hand in hand. Many different topics connect with each other in different ways.

I will have two types of series:

Mini-Series

Series (Main/Primary)

Mini-Series will consist of:

Time dedicated on a mini-series topic will be a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of 90 days

Interviewing & surveying people on their thoughts, opinions, and knowledge on this topic

Case studies

Research & learning

This type of series will not include goals, nor any action steps or implementation but it sometimes may prelude into a main series.

* Mini-series will mostly be about learning, researching and gathering knowledge.

Main Series will consist of:

Time dedicated on a main series topic will be a minimum of 100 days and a maximum of 365 days

Interviewing & surveying people on their thoughts, opinions, and knowledge on this topic (not necessarily just “experts” but different kinds of people—anyone who is willing to share their viewpoints and expertise)

This type of series will include everything that is in a mini-series with goals, action steps, implementation and showcased progressions.

* Main series will be about learning, researching and gathering knowledge as well as showing the progress of mastering a specific topic or skill through action steps and implementation of what I learn.

So, What’s Next?

The very first series on ReachingSelf will be a mini-series. This series will mostly be focused on people’s thoughts, opinions, stories and advice so it will consist of one questionnaire. I created a list of questions to use to interview and survey people.

I will begin by interviewing on camera my immediate family and close friends which will be available on my YouTube channel.

Then I will move on to other distant friends, friends of friends and acquaintances.

I will also be using an online survey to reach more unique individuals from all over.

You may or may not notice that content and posts are being published much later than they are created. This is so that I will have enough time to gather research and analyze data and have content fully prepared to be able to post consistently in a timely scheduled fashion.

Also, I wanted to be able to focus on creating valuable quality content before and then focus on the marketing aspect during the series.

And what this first series will be about? I’ll be sharing that next week. 🙂

Make sure to subscribe to be up to date on the first (mini) series on ReachingSelf! Stay tuned for the next posts on the start of the first series!

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